The Balsillie Papers provides clear, concise, peer-reviewed articles about today’s most complex issues in global governance and international affairs.

Whose Law Governs Canadian Data?

The CLOUD Act, Executive Agreements and Digital Sovereignty

SPECIAL REPORT

MARCH 11, 2026

Barry Appleton

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LATEST PAPER

Weaponized Interdependence or Shared Resilience? Rethinking Undersea Cable Security in a Fragmenting Order

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Brendon J. Cannon

Undersea communication cables have historically operated within an interconnected global system characterized by cooperative redundancy and routing agreements. This paper argues that emerging bifurcation threatens to weaken resilience by reducing redundancy, narrowing routing options and increasing incentives for disruption.

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RECENT PAPERS

Global Climate Policy Durability Amid American Backtracking: Cooling Sector Chemicals in the Kigali Era

Barry Rabe
This paper examines the current understudied international climate policy regime, considering its key design features and future viability amid recent US policy shifts hostile to many global and domestic climate mitigation efforts.

Exploring the Influence of Big Tech Lobbying on Canadian Tech Policy

Renee Black, Edward Wu, Femi Gbolahan, YeJin Kang and Sadaf Qureshi
This paper demonstrates the need for a comprehensive research agenda to better understand the evolving policy influence environment, and create policy options to strengthen oversight, restore public trust and advance balanced digital and AI policy.

Do Chatbot Developers Act Responsibly toward their Users?

Susan Ariel Aaronson and Michael Moreno
Developers struggle to incorporate responsible AI into their practice and products, for several reasons. In this paper, we examine whether four major AI developers — OpenAI, Google, xAI and DeepSeek — act responsibly when developing and deploying chatbots. We focus on a key element of AI responsibility: user rights and welfare.